CSWE Full Circle November 2012

Volume 2012, Issue 11

Former CSWE President James R. Dumpson Passed Away

James R. Dumpson, who served two terms as president of CSWE, passed away at the age of 103. Mr. Dumpson worked as the first Black welfare commissioner in the nation's history and the first social worker to oversee welfare in New York. Mr. Dumpson was a very vocal advocate for public assistance to those who needed it.

Mr. Dumpson served as the first Black dean of a non-black school of social work, Fordham University’s graduate school of social service. He also periodically traveled to Asia on behalf of the United Nations to help set up social work programs. As was noted in the New York Times obituary, Mr Dumpson was known as the Little Dynamo, and "found hope in the darkest of corners stating, 'You’ve always got to hold on to the great potential for change...that’s what keeps social workers from being overwhelmed from the misery around us.'"